comments on small business marketing, pr, sales and other random thoughts.

April 2007

Marketing research is vital for every business. It allows us to assess our respective
environments in order to develop objectives, strategies and tactics. Unfortunately, the practice of capturing
relevant information and making sense of it can be daunting.

This article
from the Kauffman eVenturing site compares the collection of information to a
treasure hunt. It also details how labor-intensive
and lengthy the process can be.

The most difficult research task for entrepreneurs is to
decide what information to pursue and what assumptions to trust. Perfect information is unobtainable. Yet, the future of your company very well
might rest on your decision to dig deeper or move on and go forward. For each company and each entrepreneur, these
critical points are different. Only you will
know when you feel confident enough about the surrounding world to move on. What is important to realize is that the
search for relevant information must end and it will end with unanswered
questions. So focus on the most
important issues and make sure to get the most out of your time.

For those of you who have seen the pop-cult movie “Office Space” 100 times, this line certainly resonates with you. (If you haven’t seen it, go rent it and get a comical lesson in how NOT to run your business!)

In this scene, Nina tirelessly answers phones at a pace of 30 calls/minute, using that same greeting in a mind-numbingly monotonous tone. You can’t help but laugh. After all, it is just a movie. Or is it?

Who answers the phone at your office? Do you have standards set that are closely monitored? If not, you might want to reconsider, since for many businesses incoming calls are their lifeblood. If your frontline employees aren’t getting the job done, it’s time to make some changes. Failing to keep a close watch on this part of your business could result in an image problem that jeopardizes your efforts to produce outstanding products or services.

Nancy Friedman, founder of the Telephone Doctor®, a St. Louis-based customer service training company (http://www.telephonedoctor.com) compiled a survey of the following 15 phone mistakes. In parenthesis you will find her comments and suggestions:

Your employees are having a bad day, and their foul mood carries over in conversations with customers. (Everyone has bad days, but customer service employees need to keep theirs to themselves.)

Your employees hang up on angry customers. (Ironclad rule: Never hang up on a customer.)

Your company doesn't return phone calls or voice-mail messages, despite listing your phone number on your Web site and/or in ads and directories. (Call customers back as soon as you can, or have calls returned on your behalf.)

Your employees put callers on hold without asking them first, as a courtesy. (Ask customers politely if you can put them on hold; very few will complain or say "No way!")

Your employees put callers on a speaker phone without asking them first if it is OK. (Again: Ask first, as a courtesy.)

Your employees eat, drink or chew gum while talking with customers on the phone. (A telephone mouthpiece is like a microphone; noises can easily be picked up. Employees need to eat their meals away from the phone. And save that stick of gum for break time.)

You have call-waiting on your business lines, and your employees frequently interrupt existing calls to take new calls. (One interruption in a call might be excusable; beyond that, you are crossing the "rude" threshold. Do your best to be prepared with enough staff for peak calling times.)

Your employees refuse or forget to use the words "please," "thank you" or "you're welcome." (Please use these words generously, thank you.)

Your employees hold side conversations with friends or each other while talking to customers on the phone, or they make personal calls on cell phones in your call center. (Don't do either of these.)

Your employees seem incapable of offering more than one-word answers. (One-word answers come across as rude and uncaring.)

Your employees do provide more than one-word answers, but a lot of the words are grounded in company or industry jargon that many customers don't understand. (If you sell tech products, for example, don't casually drop in abbreviations or acronyms such as APIs, ISVs, SMTP or TCP/IP.)

Your employees request that customers call them back when the employees aren't so busy. (Customers should never be told to call back. Request the customer's number instead.)

Your employees rush through calls, forcing customers off the phone at the earliest opportunity. (Be a little more discreet. Politely suggest that you've got the information you need and you must move on to other calls.)

Your employees obnoxiously bellow "What's this in reference to?" effectively humbling customers and belittling their requests. (Screening techniques can be used with a little more warmth and finesse. If a caller has mistakenly come your way, do your best to point him or her in the right direction.)

Your employees freely admit to customers that they hate their jobs. (This simply makes the entire company look bad. And don't think such a moment of candor or lapse in judgment won't get back to the boss.)

Setting telephone standards for your office and supporting your frontline team members is critical. Everyone wins when your best foot is always forward.

As a sales person, I naturally get excited every time my phone rings. I get even more excited when the voice on the other end of the line is from a FORTUNE 500 company inquiring about our products, which is what happened to me about two weeks ago. Wow – a giant company (with a giant budget) was calling our small software company!

After further conversation, Company Q (let’s call them) had reviewed a copy of our marketing software and wanted to partner with us to customize the product to fit their corporate climate. Upon hanging up I think I set a new world’s record for traveling the distance between my office and that of our Product Development Manager. “Can we do it? How quickly? What can we charge?” were all questions I excitedly asked. But it was clear by the look on his face that my conversation with Company Q did not have the same effect on him.

After several internal meetings, we finally decided to pass on this “dream” deal, and here’s why: we are a small software company whose focus and success has always come from helping small businesses succeed. We are not a custom development firm; therefore, while we have the content expertise Company Q was looking for, the customization component would have overextended our resources.

While the gain of the deal would have been a nice financial infusion, it would have caused massive company-wide displacement. On the heels of developing several other new products for our existing target market, we realized the smart money was in staying true to our business plan and executing on our current strategy. In the long run, that is where our real gain will be.